Saturday, March 12, 2011

The animated map sequence in this 1999 Air Afrique television commercial gives the viewer only moments to decipher Air Afrique's route network, and its European destinations are never in full view, with Rome discernible here (and is listed in the words moving across the screen) and Paris assumed, but the dot on the Cote D'Azur might be either Nice or Marseille.

Despite this lack of clarity, this still frame shows the classic structure of its home network, with a few qualifiers. It seems that at the turn of the millenium, Accra, Bobo Dioulasso, and Nouadhibou had been dropped, along with Monrovia and Freetown, both sadly embroiled in conflict at the time.

The city along the coast between Libreville and Kinshasa would correspond to the Brazzaville which pops up on screen despite being more the location of Pointe-Noire, which, along with Port-Gentil, is absent from the network.

The eastern extension from N'Djamena to Jeddah is clear, as is the transatlantic flagship from Dakar to JFK at left. Nairobi comes across the screen but there is no clear route to East Africa shown here.